What is CVE-2018-11770?

CVE-2018-11770 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Spark, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 4.2/10. Published 2018-08-13.

How severe is CVE-2018-11770?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.2 out of 10.

Is CVE-2018-11770 known to be exploited?

4 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Auth bypass in Apache Spark

CVE-2018-11770

From version 1.3.0 onward, Apache Spark's standalone master exposes a REST API for job submission, in addition to the submission mechanism used by spark-submit. In standalone, the config property 'spark.authenticate.secret' establishes a shared secret for authenticating requests to submit jobs via spark-submit. However, the REST API does not use this or any other authentication mechanism, and this is not adequately documented. In this case, a user would be able to run a driver program without authenticating, but not launch executors, using the REST API. This REST API is also used by Mesos, when set up to run in cluster mode (i.e., when also running MesosClusterDispatcher), for job submission. Future versions of Spark will improve documentation on these points, and prohibit setting 'spark.authenticate.secret' when running the REST APIs, to make this clear. Future versions will also disable the REST API by default in the standalone master by changing the default value of 'spark.master.rest.enabled' to 'false'.

Vulnerability class: Broken Authentication

EPSS: 0.658 (99.2th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 4.2 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N.

Affected products

Apache Spark
Apache Software Foundation Spark — versions 1.3.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-287 — Improper Authentication

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

security@apache.org (x_refsource_CONFIRM, Exploit, Mitigation, Vendor Advisory)
security@apache.org (mailing-list, x_refsource_MLIST, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
security@apache.org (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry, Broken Link, x_refsource_BID)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-11770?: CVE-2018-11770 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Spark, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 4.2/10. Published 2018-08-13.
How severe is CVE-2018-11770?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 4.2 out of 10.
Is CVE-2018-11770 known to be exploited?: 4 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.